As the Eights entered the cavernous foyer of the Commons Building, a rumble began to crescendo. Thanks to being hyper alert, they were able to stop short of falling into the large sink hole that opened up before them. A high pitched grumbling scream echoed up from the depths of the stygian darkness. If it was not for the seriousness of the experience it would be laughable. Six pair of eyes glowed an eerie ghostly blue up at the Marines.

He'd been watching the rear when the hole opened up, the noise making his head hurt as it rattled his skull, as such he nearly backed into Dirk where he had stopped. Turning he saw what was in front of them.

"What the?!" Colson started, swinging his gun to bear. Despite the urge to open up his training kept him inline, and he waited to either he had an order or something made a move towards them.

Apachetear wrote:"what's going on man?" he whispered into his Radio, tuning it to Roberts' channel.

Roberts saw First Squad enter the building and freeze. He sped up a little bit to close the gap, not bothering to run quietly. He heard the voice of Honeysett in his ear, which sounded so out of context that it stirred up memories from missions long ago. "Something up ahead, not sure what. We're almost there, ourselves. Stay alert," he replied to Jacob.<Tag Honeysett>

Roberts slowed down as First Squad caught up. He came to the edge of the precipice and looked down into the darkness. He saw the blue eyes, and with his infrared he saw some strange creatures staring up at them. He glanced left at Colson, who had his SMG trained on the eyes. “Orders?” he said aloud. Knowing that Morse would happily kill every single one of whatever it was, Roberts took a few seconds to glance around at their surroundings. He tried to ascertain what had made the hole. He turned his torso as he searched, aiming his shoulder light around the walls and ceiling.

The creature was large, and not one that Morse was familiar with. To date he'd racked up a kill of every alien creature that he'd come across. This one, regardless of its rarity, was something that appeared to be hostile to Morse and the others, which would give him full license to obliterate it. The trouble was that he did not not know if there were more of them or how dense it's skin was. It would not be the first creature to have resisted the shots of an M56 Smartgun.

"Contact, large!"

Being put in that position, and believe that they may be dealing with a new hostile organism rather then an insurgency, Morse changed his motion and strategy.

He snapped a zip tie quickly around the barrel of the Smartgun, snapping it into place on a loose strap on his Flak Vest which he kept for such occasions. This left his hands free to move with the Smartgun strapped to his Torso. This was followed by a quick motion to his back, in which he placed a hand on the loose swinging, and loaded, M5 Rocket Launcher that rested upon his back.

Taking a knee, and pointing the weapon squarely with the numerous eyes that were gazing upon them, the words "Plan B" having been written visibly along the sides.

Without asking for orders Morse considered what they were to do. On the one hand the creature had not attacked, but still Morse felt threatened. With a gurgle like it was making the creature was not sentient. And the last he'd heard was the mission had changed to a bag and tag.

Bag and tag.

That meant one coarse of action was dictated to deal with this particular being, and Morse thought that glassing one of those eyeballs would fit well with his other trophies.

"Drop em'!"

With that dictation, Morse placed the finger on the trigger of the M5 Rocket Launcher, and fired the payload directly at the creature, naturally assuming the others would fire presently

The rocket blasted into the hole striking the creature. A loud clanging sound echoed through the chamber as the rocket propelled grenade struck the shell at such an angle that caused it to ricochet beyond and struck one of the main supports. The resulting explosion blasted debris back out of the hole and rolled the creatures out of the team's line of site. A low rumble was felt more than heard. Suddenly 1st and 2nd found themselves falling as the floor crumbled beneath their feet.

The explosion came as a complete surprise to Roberts, who had been attempting to survey their surroundings. Animal panic gripped him as the ground crumbled under his feet. In that split second he knew that he had to try and minimize the damage of the fall, and he would deal with the fight ahead once he had his feet under him. He released his grip on the smartgun and attempted to tuck and roll to minimize the damage. (Roll Balance: Novice)

Before Dirk could react to Morse's RPG he fired. Dirk watched with a detached amazement as the RPG hurtled toward the creature. "Son of a bitch. He said a moment before the explosion.

One moment he was facing the creature, pulse rifle ready to fire at the slightest movement, the next moment, the ground fall away from underneath his feet as he dropped into a cloud of dirt and smoke. Hitting the bottom of the tunnel hard, Dirk allowed himself to roll with the fall, as he was trained to do during his parachute training on Earth. Rising quickly to his feet he quickly flipped down his thermal lense on his helmet.

"Second squad, first squad, sound off." Dirk said as he looked around for friend and foe alike.<Tag 1st squad and 2nd squad>

Roberts hit the ground hard and rolled. He stood up among the rubble, but he was reeling and almost fell over again. The first thing he did was pull out his VP-70 sidearm and scan his surroundings. His hat had fallen off, along with his smart-gun headset and infra-red eyepiece. Hopefully they were still attached to his smart-gun, wherever it had ended up. Using his shoulder light, he searched around him for any sign of his smart-gun. (Roll: Search)

Dirk Pitt wrote:"Second squad, first squad, sound off." Dirk said as he looked around for friend and foe alike.

"Roberts, standing by," he replied quickly. If he did not find his smart-gun, he would have to assemble the Ithaca shotgun in his backpack. It was not something he eagerly wanted to do while under threat of death. He had to find someone else to cover him. He looked around him for any marines, whether they needed help or could cover him.

"what's going on? Do you need assistance?" Honeysett said into his com,

"Honeysett, this is First Squad, we need backup. We fell into a basement or underground tunnel. Watch your step. Enemy contacts nearby."<Tag Honeysett>

Despite the briefing and her instincts that one of those "Harvester" creatures they had been briefed about was the contact they were chasing; Samantha was still brought up short in surprise by the thing's appearance. What DIDN'T surprise her in the least was Morse's response to it. He pretty much had only 2 options he ever took.....curse it or try to kill it....well, a third was both at the same time.....

Hall cursed herself as she felt the ground give away beneath her feet and she instinctively held on tight to her Pulse Rifle while doing her best to roll with the fall. Upon landing, she did her best to pop up as quickly as possible, keep her weapon at the ready and she immediately yelled out for her squad-mates; "FIRST SQUAD, SOUND OFF!"

She was relieved to see Roberts pretty much doing the same thing and she quickly heard the messages coming from Pitt and Honeysett and nodded her head at Eric's response for Honeysett to move forward and assist. She called out over the Platoon channel herself; "This is Hall, 1st Squad here...doing our best to get into good order" as she looked around to make sure Marc and Scarlett were okay....

The momentary excitement Morse felt of the anticipated rupturing of the creatures body was as short lived as the blast which he had caused. The immense amount of debris blocked his view from seeing what damage he had done. This was only compounded when the ground began to quake and suddenly gave out beneath them. Morse felt it come loose and like a rabid animal he had scrambled to grab something that was not there.

Unlike the others, Morse was caught entirely in shock and fell mostly down to his side. His was not as much for a roll as it was a dismal flop as the sound of his heavy equipment crashing around him was heard. Fortunately the USCM made everything cheap and durable, so most of it would still likely be in working condition. Perhaps not functioning entirely properly, but would still do a job with the right finesse.

Morse has caught a lot of the dirt and debris in his agape mouth when he crashed to the floor and immediately began coughing it all up. "Whuh-huh-huh." Morse spat. "What the fuck!" he clammered to his feet. "How the fucked that happen!" He continued "This thing can't even punch through tank armor!"

It was true, the way armor technology had gone, the M5 Rocket Launcher was quickly becoming obsolete. But for its weight and abilities against light targets there was nothing better at the present. The M5 had landed on the ground beside him, but before picking it up, Morse unstrapped the Smartgun on his chest and took hold of it. He checked over his equipment as he sounded off.

Clint felt as if he were in well over his head here with this unit. The last mission had been a bunch of werewolves or something and now they were fighting tremors from that old movie. He had formed up on the right side of the diamond at Morse's direction and had a bead on one of the weird creature's eyeballs with his sniper rifle. The creature was just looking at them.

Then things took an unexpected curve and McKenna watched as the rocket went soaring past in his left eye's peripheral vision. As the explosion began in the hole, he could feel his legs rocking. Suddenly he felt weightless and began falling. He stopped almost as quickly with his rifle scope introducing itself against his ribs. Dust was settling still all over the area. He coughed feeling a bit sore on the right side. "McKenna...still here" he called out and looked around for the rest of first and second squad.

Clint looked through the scope of the rifle and found one lens had cracked. He quickly ran through the different vision modes in the scope, checking to see that they still functioned with the cracked lens. "Morse, did you get it?" he questioned wondering about whether the weird creature was still alive.